


The Stars Around Us

by PearOh



Series: Mass Effect Fics [1]
Category: Mass Effect Trilogy
Genre: Fluff, M/M, Spacer (Mass Effect), Stargazing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-02
Updated: 2020-03-02
Packaged: 2021-02-28 03:02:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,493
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22986793
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PearOh/pseuds/PearOh
Summary: The stars have always been home to him, one he can now share with Kaidan.
Relationships: Kaidan Alenko/Male Shepard
Series: Mass Effect Fics [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1652008
Comments: 4
Kudos: 21





	The Stars Around Us

**Author's Note:**

  * For [thelastofthecrazypeople](https://archiveofourown.org/users/thelastofthecrazypeople/gifts).



> Written for @thelastofthecrazypeople who asked for some fluffy downtime between their Shepard and Kaidan :)

He enjoys the night more than he does the day. How could he not, the boy who grew up amongst the stars? The sky turns black and it feels like home to him. The moon shines brightly tonight, lighting his path as he walks to the outlook he found a few days ago while exploring the place. The constellations hang there in the distance, scattered like moondust on a blanket of black velvet. Some of them seem almost within reach, bigger and brighter than the others, beckoning him with a smile, like pearly white teeth in the night.

It's almost perfect, without a single cloud in sight. The plains on this planet are vast enough that there is no mountain or tree before him to obstruct the landscape. Too vast, perhaps, too open for him to feel completely safe. But the view… It reminds him of the one from the Normandy. However, unlike on the bridge of a spaceship, he needs to crane his neck up to take in the magnificence of the universe. Unless he decides to lay down on the grass. Now there's an idea… 

“There you are.”

Damien tears his gaze away almost reluctantly. Almost, but not quite, for there is only one thing — only one  _ person _ — he loves more than the stars themselves and it is the man now standing next to him.

“Stargazing again, I see,” Kaidan chuckles. “You know, I might almost get jealous if the view wasn't so damn beautiful.”

Damien smiles back. “Nothing compares to you, you know that.”

A little cheesy, maybe, but filled with enough feelings that he can almost see Kaidan's cheeks flush.

“Flatterer.”

His hand reaches for the other man's, a comforting gesture that has become intuitive over the past few months. Kaidan laces his fingers with his and looks up at the stars.

They settle into a comfortable silence, content in just being together. It's a pleasant night, with romantic moonlight and a soft breeze caressing their faces as they both relax in the moment. After a while, Damien is the first to speak again:

“I've always loved the stars,” he explains in a whisper, his eyes lost in the distance once more. “All those worlds… Billions of people… Endless possibilities… And with space travel, they're all at our fingertips.” He turns his gaze back toward Kaidan. “It's beautiful, you know.”

“ _You — you alone will have the stars as no one else has them…_ ” Kaidan replies with a warm smile. “ _In one of the stars I shall be living. In one of them I shall be laughing. And so it will be as if all the stars were laughing, when you look at the sky at night… You — only you — will have stars that can laugh_.”

“I didn't know you were such a poet.”

“Ah, not me. Antoine de Saint-Exupéry.”

“The Little Prince?”

He nods solemnly. “Ash lent me her copy of the book once. I was just reminded of it.”

They take a minute to observe a moment of silence for their fallen comrades. For Ashley, and for everyone else they have lost along the way.

The stars probably have names already, maybe even several in different languages throughout the Milky Way, but Damien makes the decision to name the brightest one he can find after the gunnery chief.

“Can you recognize any of the constellations?” Kaidan asks eventually in order to break the tension.

“Not without a star map,” he admits. “I've never been to this part of the galaxy before.”

He's traveled to so many places in his life, visited so many planets. First with his parents, then with his teammates after following in their footsteps and joining the Alliance himself. He's seen so many stars. Some of them are unique, some are the same but shaped into different constellations. The infinity of the universe never ceases to amaze him. So many wonders left to see… 

“This one looks like a bunny,” Kaidan notes, pulling him out of his reverie.

“Which one?”

“That one over there,” he says, pointing with his free hand at a small cluster at the far right of their field of vision.

“I think it looks more like a little duck.”

“No way! Look at those ears!”

“Could be a beak,” Damien protests good-naturedly.

Kaidan tilts his head to the side, concentration creasing his face into a frown. “No, it's definitely a bunny.”

“Let's agree to disagree, then.”

The smile across Damien's lips only grows wider as his lover wraps an arm around his waist and pulls him closer. Leaning into his touch, Damien listens to him ramble about the stars with tenderness.

“I wonder which one is the Sol system. Or if we can even see it from here. Oh, hey! This one over there looks like an angry Krogan.”

Damien chuckles. “Are there any other kinds of Krogans?” he muses, raising an eyebrow. “Yeah, I can see it. Wrex charging headfirst into a fight.”

They keep doing this for a while longer. They make up their own constellations, shaping stars together in the forms of objects and animals. His favorite, Damien has decided, is the Kitten which Kaidan describes as “drinking the Milky Way out of a bowl." He laughs at his own joke, a sound that never fails to lighten Damien's heart.

He lets this peaceful feeling wash over him and inhales deeply, relaxing into Kaidan's arms. The stars, his lover, what more does he need to feel complete? He wishes this moment could last just a little bit longer, but time always has a way of catching up to him, it seems.

A small yawn escapes his control. He can feel his eyes starting to sting as sleepiness creeps up on him. How long have they been standing here, gazing at the stars in silent contemplation? A while, judging by the sun's golden rays peeking from behind the horizon, slowly turning the sky into a lighter shade of purple. The light fills the emptiness with a vast array of orange and pink colors blurred together to form an impressive picture. 

The sunrise is beautiful, Damien can't deny it. It's bright and warm, and leaves you with a sense of wonder. Yet, he feels a pang of regret as the stars disappear behind the thin blue veil of the morning sky. The nights are disappointingly short on this planet, but he can comfort himself in the fact that days are also shorter than on most worlds — shorter than on Earth anyway. He won't have to wait so long for the stars to return.

“We should do this more often,” Kaidan suggests in a hushed whisper as if suddenly afraid his voice might break the magic of the moment.

Damien quirks an eyebrow. “Watch the stars?”

He knows that can't be it. The stars are all around them on the Normandy, and they've spent many a night together in the Captain's Cabin, lying in bed, with their bodies intertwined and their eyes lost in the infinite vastness above them.

“No— Yes…” he stammers in a way that could only be described as adorable. “I mean take a break, spend some time alone together, just the two of us. We're always dealing with one crisis after another, it's easy to forget that we need to catch our breath every once in a while.”

Damien considers teasing him about their “alone time” before realizing that this isn't what Kaidan means by “catch our breath.” Living on a spaceship, you get used to a certain lack of privacy. And while he loves the Normandy and the people he's surrounded himself with, it's true that neither of them is ever truly alone. They always have to be ready for an emergency, always have to be available at the push of a button. Come to think of it, he isn't sure he remembers the last time they were granted some well-deserved shore leave.

“You're right. Maybe we should spend more time together.”

“I'm glad you agree,” he says. “There's a little restaurant on the Citadel where I've always wanted to take you. They serve the meanest steak.”

“I can't wait.”

“Then it's a date.”

Kaidan turns his head to look at him. The two of them are so close already that Damien can see the tiny flecks of gold in his brown eyes dancing with the reflection of the low hanging sun. He tilts his head forward, closing the gap between them. Their lips meet halfway and the stars come back. A different kind, bigger and brighter. Kissing Kaidan feels like standing on the bridge of the Normandy as the ship takes off. It feels safe and exciting. He isn't standing on some foreign planet anymore, gazing at an unfamiliar sky. He is home, in the arms of the man he loves.

He realizes then that no matter where they go, so long as Kaidan is by his side, the stars will always be within reach.


End file.
